h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, here we are on a sunny/wet Sunday, the more things change.... Well, yesterday we had an election. This tells it all. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4254736.stm

(Thanks G., for the link...)

We sat in front of the teev, having watched the Director's Edit of StarTrek: The Motion Picture, because we didn't want to start watching the result too early. At the moment, Don Brash (the Money Man) refuses to admit defeat, but the interesting thing is, he lost his electorate! He's in all right, but as a List MP. This is unprecedented. I make no secret of despising the man, but no amount of loathing seems to affect public personages, New Age ideas about thoughts being powerful, not withstanding.

By the by, I am reading a bizarre book by David Icke, about 9/11. What distresses me, is that maybe 40% of what he says is indisputably true. The other 60% discredits the true part, and enables people to sneer and live in denial of the indisputable parts. Maybe Icke is being used to discredit things which would otherwise cause great public disquiet? Hey, it's a theory and IMO a good one.

Della,

He used to talk a lot of sense(Icke that is), and still does occasionally but as you say the rest of the stuff discredits it, and you start wondering about his state of mind. Is he off the planet or ahead of his time and saner than the rest of us

I haven't read this book but I know when I hear him speaking I feel distinctly uncomfortable

Perhaps we will never know.


Websailor

Della, have you seen his (Icke's) website?

http://www.davidicke.com/


alji

Well its all over now, our press is concentrating on Germanys result and not mentioning NZ at all. How very provincial.

Hi, all! I am ploughing my way through Icke's book, I lost momentum after a while, and starting reading another one, but Icke fascinates me! I'd put the proportion of sense up to 55% now, which makes me think, what a pity about the other 45%...

Thanks for the link, alji.

Kaz and katkodl, I was listening to the World Service when I got home from town yesterday, and they had heaps to say about the German election. What amazed me is how similar the German situation is to ours! Merkel and Schroeder both refuse to admit defeat, just as here, Clark and Brash both refuse to concede. In two weeks, our special votes (absentee ballots and similar) will be counted, and that may, probably will, make an enormous difference. A co-leader of the Greens said on the night, that the specials will probably give them an electorate seat, and I certainly desperately hope so, their party vote share is *just* 5% and if the specials go against them, then they are toast, and so is Labour, because they rely on the Greens.

I don't know how the German situation will be resolved - I found what I heard on the World Service, a bit confusing..

Hello!

Right, Austrian media is full with reports about the election in Germany. (Probably the most nonsensical word of the year will become "Jamaica Coalition"!) NZ wasn't even mentioned. It's interesting that the media in NZ is reporting so much about the election in Germany. I suppose you don't get any reports about Austrian elections, do you?

As a non-native speaker I didn't quite get the following of your first post of this thread: <> What does that mean?

To be honest, katkodl, we haven't had all that much coverage of the German election, except when people here noticed the similarity!

How our version of MMP (mixed member proportional) works, is, candidates stand for election and voters have two votes - the electorate vote, where they vote for a local candidate, and the party vote, where they vote for a particular party, National, Labour, Greens etc. Each party publishes its list before the election, and when the party votes are allocated afterwards, the party is allowed a certain number of seats. For the National Party, led by Don Brash, that's 49. The National party candidates chosen in their electorates, are subtracted from the 49, and the rest are made up of those on the list. Many candidates both stand in their local electorate and are also on the list, which is how candidates who are defeated in their electorate still get into Parliament. If a party gets 5% of the party vote, they are entitled to MPs, even if no one from the party was elected in their local electorate.
Some people think that list MPs aren't 'proper' MPs, but they are. However, it's unprecedented for a party leader not to stand in an electorate, which Brash apparently didn't do!
When is the next Austrian election?

The best book i've read in a long time is "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen. Don't let the crap title fool you. Or the front cover quote from Paxman ("Hilarious"). It's at turns outrageous, funny, angering, and fascinating. Blows the whole Icke phenomena and a thousand others like him wide open, and shows how the mumbo jumbo discredits the facts and stops real information getting through and real science being done.

It made me soooo angry. Read it.

Coincidentally, autist, I just saw a review of that bookin a local magazine! I must make a note to get it a.s.a.p! Where (and how) have you been these days, anyway?

Hello,

thanks a lot for the explanation, Della! Is there any news yet? I suppose it will take them another few weeks before they'll come to any decisions.

The next parlamentary election in Austria will be in fall 2006. Last spring we were close to reelections, but then the parties of the government somehow wangled it and could prevent a reelection .

We'll have provincial government elections next Sunday. There are nine provinces in Austria, and three have elections in October. I don't think anybody is interested in these elections except people who live in those regions.

You're welcome, katkodl... Apparently, we will have the results of the counting of the special votes, at 2 pm on Saturday (though the radio said, maybe it will be before then.) It's very worrying...

Are you in one of the regions having a local election? If so, does it make you nervous?